Posterity
by Elfpen
Summary: After the fall of the Republic, Obi-Wan Kenobi emerges from hiding as the vigilante pseudo-jedi called Ben, who follows the Force's call to aid hurting worlds in the midst of the Empire's dark regime. He has no delusions of grandeur about his doomed calling, but in the life of a young girl, his efforts will sow the seeds for a story more fantastic than he could have hoped for.
1. Prologue: Going to Work

It had been three years since the fall of the Republic.

Obi-Wan Kenobi would not have known that. Sure, he checked the chrono often enough to know that time was passing - days, weeks, months. But he rarely paid attention to the year. On this desert planet, there were no natural seasons to give him external clues, and he had no desire to keep a personal log to track the years. He was one of the very last Jedi in existence – hell, he might even be the very last by now, he had no way of knowing. If any others had survived, they were lying low in some godforsaken world beyond the Empire's gaze.

Obi-Wan knew if he had any sense he'd do the same for the rest of his foreseeable future. For a time, he did. He delivered the boy, now called Luke, to Tatooine, and stayed close by for months after. But the isolation had been torment. Every moment spent alone with his demons and Anakin's lingering ghost, neither dead nor alive, drove Obi-Wan one step closer to giving in. Worlds were falling around him, the Empire's shadow grew every day, and Obi-Wan was completely helpless to stop it. The Force itself seemed to shrink away from him. Whispers replaced it, coming to him in the lucid nightmares before sleep. The Dark Side had overtaken the remnants of the once-great world he knew, they reminded him. What, really, would be different if he gave in to its power instead of tormenting himself?

And yet, in the midst of despair, the Force caught up to him and fanned the dying fire in his heart. He was of its last precious children, and it called him to act.

Despite the hopelessness that had taken hold of his heart so firmly in Anakin's wake, Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi came back to himself. The confident, surefire Jedi Master of yesteryear had died, but before he did he'd sent a firm and resolute kick to the backside of his successor. _Get off your sorry aging ass, Obi-Wan_ , it rebuked him in a calm, belligerent tone that Qui-Gon had taught him, _If you keep moping like that you'll get stuck that way._

Put in your place by _yourself_. This had to be a new all-time-low for his mental stability. Obi-Wan laughed dryly at the thought. The Mind Healers at Coruscant would've had a field day to diagnose him – he could all but feel the weight of the inches-thick folder cataloguing his mental ills. But the mind healers were no more. Coruscant was a world of soot. He had no one to remind him that he was going crazy, no one to coach his crackling psyche, no one to sit him on a couch and ask him if he really was, deep down, alright. So in the silence of a troubled man trying very hard to be sane, Obi-Wan locked up his meager home and set up force shields to protect it. He bid a silent goodbye to the Skywalker farm on the horizon, took a borrowed speeder to Mos Eisley and used what little funds he had to buy the smallest, most rickety starship they had.

He left. He did not know where he would go, where the Force would guide him. But he knew that he had to do more than mope in the desert. He was a Jedi. Perhaps the very last. The future needed him, but so did the present. The past had had Master Obi-Wan Kenobi to clutch its pieces together even as it fell apart. Now, in the midst of darkness, it would have Ben, the tired old man who had a lightsaber on his belt and a determination in his heart that even _he_ didn't understand. He sighed into the star-lit windshield and closed his eyes, calling upon the Force to guide his path.

He was so alone. He was so tired. He was so heavy with grief and guilt.

But he had work to do.

His fingers glid over the controls without his knowing exactly what they were doing. The computer plotted a course for a planet that he had never heard of, and Ben streaked into hyperspace, leaving Obi-Wan Kenobi behind.


	2. A Day in the Life

"You know," Huffed a wide-eyed Welk Sarlin, "If I die this time," he paused again to huff and jump clumsily over a rock, "It's going to be your _" huff_ "bloody" _huff_ , " _fault!"_

"Now won't _that_ be new!" Ben Kenobi said sarcastically, arcing his lightsaber behind him to deflect blaster fire. With grace that eluded most forty-two year old men, Ben leaped down an embankment and over a stream. The twenty-six year old Welk groaned at the overwhelming sense of unfairness that arose whenever the grey-haired Kenobi outpaced him.

Their ship was in view now, thank the stars, and Ben had worked his Definitely Not Jedi Magic (uh huh) and opened the cockpit dome. He climbed up into the back seat and waved at Welk as he sped, wheezing, toward the ship.

"Come on, Welk, jump!"

"No! I hate it when you do that!" Welk protested, focusing on keeping his legs moving and not collapsing.

"Do you hate it more than dying?"

Welk groaned loudly again and jumped. His guts turned as something invisible caught him mid-air and led him right into the pilot seat. Chest heaving still, he turned the engines on as Ben shut the cockpit dome, red blaster bolts splattering noisily against the shields. "Goddess, the oxy line had better be running today," Welk said, strapping an oxygen mask over his face.

"Isn't that for emergencies?" Ben asked, programming the navigation computer.

"If this doesn't qualify as an emergency, Kenobi, I do _not_ want you to be the first responder at my deathbed!" Welk could not see the minuscule smirk below Kenobi's mustache.

"Then I suggest you hit the hyperdrive… now!"

They blasted away soon enough to leave flames in the atmosphere.

Below, a party of clone troopers staggered to a halt, watching the flaming contrails above. The commander of the squadron tapped his comm. unit.

"This is Commander S2651, contact base. Rogue has made it back to hyperspace – do you have a read on their location? Over."

The comm crackled static briefly before an identical voice appeared on the other end. " _Roger that, Commander. We are unable to track the bogey at this time, over."_

"And why the hell is that? Over."

" _They jumped to hyperspace from the mesosphere, sir, too quickly for our tracking computers to register, over."_

The clone sighed. "Was the ship damaged on exit, over?"

Another static pause. _"It… doesn't appear so, sir. Over."_

The commander shook his head angrily and glanced back at his fidgeting troops before he tapped the comm. again. "Roger that, Base. Contact Lord Vader. Do _not_ mention my IDN, do you copy? Over."

There was an especially length pause. _"Copy that. Whose IDN should I report, sir? Over."_

"Well," growled the commander, "I suppose it had better be _yours,_ soldier. Over."

There was an especially long pause. In a short voice, base responded, " _Wilco. Out."_

The Commander dropped the line and turned back to his troops, who snapped to attention, blasters at the ready. "Fall back to base," He shouted at them. "And scrape up Prax and Blueskull on your way." They saluted and turned about, jogging in the direction they'd come from.

Commander S2651 cast one last look back at the hazy spot in the sky where the Rogue had been. "Damn Jedi," he hissed into his helmet. "Don't they know they're supposed to _stay_ dead?"

* * *

"Another prisoner of war free, more Imperial munitions put out of service, and we even have all of our limbs intact this time. I'd say that is an unmerited success." Welk was far less agitated after half an hour on the oxy line. "Where to now, Ben?" He cast a look back at his companion, who was gazing out the window.

"I'm not sure yet," Ben said thoughtfully, hand at his beard, eyes lost in the haze of hyperspace. Welk shrugged. A year ago, he would've been grilling the man for a quicker answer. Now, he just glanced tiredly at the nav screen.

"Well, we got about fifty percent fuel. I can duck us in and out of the Rim to throw their tag team and hit Nixor on our way back to top up."

"Nixor?" Ben looked away from the window. "Not _that_ dump. Isn't that just along Hutt space?"

"Well, in this galaxy it's either the Hutts or the Empire, and Nixor's the only place rank enough where neither will come sniffing. You got a better idea, Kenobi?"

Ben sighed. Welk was right, unfortunately. "Nixor it is," he said resignedly, and let his gaze fall back to the window. He didn't realize his eyes had fallen shut in concentration until Welk spoke again to break his reverie.

"You think your little head voices will get a read on our next play by then?"

Ben resisted the urge to correct Welk's schizophrenic view of the Force. "Yes, I think so. Thank you, Welk."

"Yeah, well, I guess I'll have to die some other time. You keep my calendar booked." He turned down the lights above the copilot's seat. "I'll let you know when we get there."

* * *

The _Rogue_. That was what they'd started called him these days. Was he a real Jedi? Had he merely stolen the lightsaber and robes? Was he using the Force just then, or was it a trick of the light? No one in the Imperial Army tended to agree on one theory, but the higher command had been employing their popular 'shoot now, ask questions later' tactic.

There _were_ still a few straggling Jedi left haunting the galaxy, the Emperor knew this. They posed no significant threat and remained in hiding whenever possible. Those that attempted to launch attacks were an embarrassment to their once-great Order. They were gunned down one by one as their fortitude cracked and they launched desperate suicide missions.

All except this _Rogue_. He wasn't interested in attacking the Empire directly. He spent his days entrenched in far off worlds, especially those newly subdued by the Empire or those under threat of occupation. He salvaged hospitals, broke Pro-Republic rebels out of prison, helped farmers negotiate trade route allowances with troopers – he even managed to relocate an entire _orphanage_ once, just because the children were scheduled for relocation for work at the Empire's capital.

He wasn't a true threat. He wasn't a militant. He wasn't a terrorist. Some weren't even sure if he was an outright rebel. But he was giving the rebels _hope_ , and that made him a goddamn nuisance.

"Sounds like another clone got on Lord Vader's bad side," said the communications cadet quietly. Lieutenant Kazic turned to see his trouble expression.

"I can see why," she said, and gestured to the screen in front of her. "They let the Rogue get away. _Again_." She glanced to another monitor, which displayed half a dozen ID tags highlighted in red under 'Most Wanted'. "And he wasn't the _only_ one who got away, either."

Cadet Fargun looked uneasy as he came over to watch the drone footage. There was no sound, but the Rogue could be seen, lightsaber in hand, running away from a troop of clones and deflecting blaster fire to take out a couple of unfortunate troopers. He gestured frantically at something, and the camera panned to capture a younger, dark-haired main running to catch up.

"Who is that?" Fargun asked. Lt. Kazic brushed her headtails over her shoulders in annoyance and brought up a new ID image on her screen, this one of a human-nagai hybrid who looked like he planned to murder the camera operator once the holo was captured.

"Some lowlife by the name Welk Sarlin. Unfortunately, that's all we're likely to learn about him. He hails from the lower levels of Coruscant, which means he probably _should_ have a rap sheet a mile long but doesn't have a birth certificate to pin it to."

"And the Rogue?" Asked the cadet.

"Why do you think we call him that?" the Leuitenant asked, wishing it wasn't her job to train the new recruits. "Even in battle, the guy really knows how to _not_ look at a camera."

"But he's a Jedi, isn't he?" Fargun glanced down at Kazic. She turned an unamused stare up at him.

"Is he?" she asked, dryly. The cadet said nothing. She sighed. "With all those Jedi dead, there are hundreds of lightsabers and robes lying around the galaxy. He could be a Jedi, but he could just as easily be some Rim bumpkin dressed up in a dead man's outfit, hoping to irritate us. It's happened before."

"Well, he's succeeding at it." The Cadet regretted the words as soon as he'd said them. Kazic gave him a withering glare. "But if he _were_ a Jedi," Fargun attempted to recover, "wouldn't he be using the Force more? I've seen the holovids from the takeover. Jedi are more theatrical than that," he waved at the screen. Kazic squinted at the tiny running figure in the video. Was that leap helped by some unseen Force, or was he just a very athletic man? Did that blaster bolt just _happen_ to hit that clone, or was it _suggested_ to go that way? And did they plan far enough ahead to have their ship open on remote command, or was their Rogue more than he seemed…? She shook her head.

"I don't know about that," she said eventually. "Either he's a damn lucky man, or a Jedi paranoid enough to give up his _theatric_ ways to preserve his anonymity." She closed the holovid and brought up the Rebel IDs from the second screen. "Either way, he's a fool if he thinks it'll help. Get me the tracking numbers for these inmates."

"Ummm…"

"Is there a problem, cadet?"

"Ummm, the, uh, inmates' tracking anklets… they were cut off, Ma'am. Found about two miles outside the west perimeter."

"That's not possible, they're on the run! There's no way that they could have-"

Cadet Fargun made vague lightsaber-ish motions with hands.

Lieutenant Kazic shut her mouth and glared at the screen. "Shavit."

"For not being theatrical, he's rather good," murmured Fargon in begrudging respect. Kazic whipped her head around so her headtails almost spun out and smacked the cadet. He jumped back.

"You want to tell that to Lord Vader, cadet?"

"No, Ma'am," he said hurriedly.

"Then get back work and find those inmates." When he hesitated, she added, " _now._ "

Fargun jumped and fell back into his desk, demurely tapping away at the keys and casting occasional, worried glanced at his superior. He glanced at the _'Wanted'_ notice sent out to all Imperial intelligence earlier that day; a blurred holo image of the Rogue, back turned to the camera, lightsaber drawn. Somewhere deep beneath the sense of self-preservation that compelled him to serve the Empire, Fargun felt admiration for the mysterious figure.

Jedi or not, you had to admit the man had style.

* * *

Ben Kenobi was deep in meditation. Qui-Gon would've been proud to see how easily and often his former apprentice slipped into meditation these days. It was a way of life, now, it had to be. He had no Council to guide his actions, no masters to give him advice, just his own wits and the Force itself. Meditation was perhaps the only reason he could operate without appearing _completely_ insane.

Unfortunately, at the moment, meditation was being absolutely no help. He did not know where the Force wished him to go from here. In the past, he had always been able to envision the planet where he was needed most, or sense in his hands which buttons on the Nav he ought to press to plot a course. Over a full year – closer to two, now – he'd never hesitated to follow the Force's call to even the wild reaches of the galaxy. Odd jobs, rescue missions, humanitarian efforts underneath the Emperor's nose. It had never been easy, but it had always been _clear._ Even when Ben inadvertently picked up Welk in a runaway hijacking, it'd been _clear_ to Ben that the rough-around-the-edges hybrid Coruscanti would be useful to keep around. Even when he'd been shot in the arm and nearly fallen ill from infection, it had been _clear_ that he would be fine after a few weeks' rest.

But today, all he had was muffled impressions, hazy blots of green and blue and a sense of coolness. A temperate planet. Terrestrial. Well, that narrowed it down by about… not at all. Ben couldn't even _remember_ all of the Terrestrial Class planets in the galaxy. He really should have paid more attention in classes when he was younger – little did he know that he would not always have the Jedi Archives to aid him. Unbidden, the memory of Master Yoda's teasing came to mind - _Lost a planet, Master Obi-Wan has! How embarrassing, how embarrassing._

No sooner could the thought "troll" cross his mind than did the ship lurch beneath him and propel Ben quickly and violently out of meditation. Back in the present, alarms were blaring.

"Shavit!" Welk hissed, toggling the shields to full power and making a hard evasive turn. Ben turned on his console lights and surveyed the situation.

"What was that?" he opened up the radar and saw three blips on their tail.

"We-ell," Welk drawled, "You know that little comment I made earlier about the Hutts and the Empire not sniffing around Nixor?"

"Oh, _no._ "

"Hey now, I was _right_ about Nixor. But apparently Uogo'cor is crawling with clones. I scraped through their radar without an Imperial ID, they think I'm a pirate running scared." He pulled on the controls and sent them spiraling upwards. Ben held onto his armrests with white-knuckles, suddenly reminded of just _how much_ he despised flying.

"How many are there?"

"I got three TIEs on my tail and by the sound of things they're calling in more."

"How much fuel do we have left?"

"Eehhh," Welk glanced dismally at the display. "Nixor won't run us to empty but if we need to go farther it's gonna be hella close."

"They'll be expecting us to follow the Trax, we need somewhere of the traderoutes," Ben was already tapping in a route on the Nav. "Gendrah-Narvin is a off-route system coreward with a Pro-Republic bent. The TIEs won't follow us there alone, it'll buy us time."

"What?" Welk cast Kenobi an incredulous look. "Ben, Gendrah-Narvin is… that's nearly three times the distance to Nixor! Is there anything closer?"

"The _TIEs_ are quite a bit closer," Ben quipped, bracing himself against an ion blast. "We need to go now if you don't want this ship in pieces. Eject flares and jump it; power down the periphery functions to save on power, and we _might_ just make it there with fuel to spare."

"I wish I didn't know you!" Welk yelled, flicking switches angrily. He shoved a resolute middle finger in the TIE fighters' general direction before ejecting flares and punching the hyperdrive into action.

"And yet here you are!" Ben yelled back impishly.

"Hell knows why," the pilot groaned.

They streaked into space.

Hyperspace may have been the fastest way to travel, but space was still unbelievably massive. After Welk cut back on power, the cockpit went dark. Once the adrenaline wore off, Ben slipped deep into thought, if only to keep Welk's anxious mumbling from driving him to agitation. This mystery planet was still hiding behind an indecipherable haze, but… terrestrial. Gendrah-Narvin was terrestrial, wasn't it? Perhaps the haze he experienced was the unforeseen clamor of their diversion. But were that so, with the ruckus over, why was it still so unclear?

"Oh, _come on!"_ Welk smacked the controls as the ship slammed out of hyperspace, hull groaning.

"What's happened?" It was hard for Ben to see the controls with the power dimmed down.

"One of those bucket heads must've hit me, the jump tore a hole in the fuel line. I got half of one cell left, tops."

"What about that?" Ben pointed to the planet whose orbit had pulled their limping vessel out of hyperspace. They were plunging towards its atmosphere at a bad angle. "Where is this?"

"I got no idea – the computers are dying." Frantically trying to coax his ship back to life, Welk eventually looked up at the planet in view, and then down at the emergency panel at his left hand side. He turned in his seat and gave Ben a mournful look. "I got to turn you loose, Kenobi, it's the best chance you got."

"What? What about you?"

"I got a whole half-cell left, I'll be fine!" Welk made himself smile despite everything.

"No! Wait, Sarlin, don't you dare-" but Ben's protests were cut short when Welk flicked the switch and two windowed steel doors shut between their seats, transforming Ben's portion of the cockpit into an escape pod.

" _You got maybe one entry's worth of power in that thing, don't miss!"_ Welk teased over the intercom, but Ben could see the mortal worry in his eyes. _"I'll contact you when I land."_ He glanced back to see the nose of his ship beginning to glow in the thermosphere, and gulped. He'd has his fair share of risky landings, but this… He glanced back again at his companion, whose mouth was moving in an unheard protest.

Ben had never told him who, exactly, he was, but Welk was from Coruscant. He could tell a fraud from the real thing. He hovered one hand over the launch button and used the other to press the intercom a final time. _"May the Force be with you,"_ he said, and slammed his fist on the launch button, sending Ben Kenobi and his astonished face into the atmosphere of… well, whatever planet this was.

"I hate to tell you this," Welk said to the looming world ahead as his ship hung on for dear life, "I got a real slave driver of a boss, I'm completely booked. So I'm sorry, but I really don't have time to die today!" A small explosion sounded from his left wing. "I know," he told it, "I'm such a flake!"

* * *

Ben guided his pod into one of the most uncoordinated re-entries he'd ever made in his life. Welk's last words to him echoed in his head, and if he had time to think about anything other than not dying, he would've been mad at himself for not realizing that Welk knew before. The glass window above his head and in front of his face gave him whirling glimpses of the planet once he was in the atmosphere, blurs of green and blue.

A Terrestrial system.

No wonder it had looked hazy – it looked even hazier now.

"So much for clear," Ben grunted, slamming the uncooperative electronic display, which gasped for power. It blinked to life long enough to tell him he was dangerously close to the ground. Ben yanked the parachutes open and fell hard against the dashboard. He had barely recovered when the power went out completely and the sound of alarms was replaced by the sound of a mighty crash and crumpling steel against soil. He hit his head in the dark and biology took over.

He did not move.


	3. Strangers

**A/N:** Just a heads up, the lullaby I use here is my own edits imposed upon the traditional song/lullaby _All Through the Night._ So if you recognize it in any capacity, that's why.

* * *

 _While our moons, their watches keeping  
All through the night  
While this weary world is sleeping  
All through the night _

Obi-Wan Kenobi was singing. He thought he was singing – or, wait, no, humming along. The voice he heard was far too high to be his own tenor. It was Beru Lars who was singing, somewhere over his shoulder. He was sitting in a cozy, fire-lit living room, cradling Luke's small body warm against his own. He looked over his shoulder and saw that Beru was not sitting by Owen, but by Bail Organa, who held Leia against his chest much like Obi-Wan held Luke. She crooned over the sleeping babe and the lullaby wafted gently over to Obi-Wan, who hummed it over Luke, its words unspoken but engrained on his heart by some ancient memory he couldn't place.

 _O'er our spirits gently stealing  
Visions of delight revealing  
Breathes a pure and holy feeling  
All through the night._

The song was his song, he knew. He couldn't remember where he'd learned it, but surely it'd been him who had taught it to Beru, to Bail after the war had ended. The war _had_ ended; the Empire defeated, things were as they were meant to be – they had to be, or else they would not all be together like this, together here and at peace. Luke's face twitched in his sleep, infantile lips quirking in a mindless smile. The Jedi master ran a thumb gently down a small, bundled arm. Absently, Obi-Wan considered that, in a different life, fatherhood would've been a grand calling.

A lightsaber ignited.

Leia screamed, high-pitched and frantic, and Beru's shriek rang in twisted unison. Luke grabbed weakly at Obi-Wan's tabards and the Jedi turned, shielding the child as much as he could while taking a defensive stance. He reached for his own saber, but as his fingers brushed the hilt it flew from his belt and into the grasp of a monster, a spindling mass of metal and seared bone, rasping clouds of volcanic ash, smelling sweet and thick of roasted flesh.

"Anakin," The name escaped like a curse. Luke cried harder against his not-father's chest.

The Sith said nothing, angry gold eyes screaming everything he'd said before in a silent, murderous reprise. Obi-Wan took a step backward. "No," he hissed, bringing up both arms to wrap around Luke. He took another step back, and tripped over Welk Sarlin's corpse. Another step, and he was ankle-deep in Qui-Gon Jinn's ashes, in Mace Windu's blood, in Adi Gallia's gore and Siri Tachi's bones. "No," He protested again, to the advancing Sith and the hell-flooded ground. Luke screamed with him. Jedi corpses brushed his boots. Kit Fisto's lifeless _lekku_ tangled his leg. Garen Muln's bloodstained pilot helm bobbed in the waves, beating against his calf. He grasped Luke tighter against himself. "No! You won't take him, too!"

Darth Vader extended a hand toward Luke and pinched, and the silence that replaced the screams was worse than Obi-Wan could've imagined. " _No!"_ He screamed, trying to loosen Vader's grasp, but then he was choking, too, and forced to drop Luke into the drowning flow of death as he grasped aimlessly at his own burning throat. Vader released him suddenly and he tripped backwards, almost stepping on Luke's floating body.

He fell onto a saber and blue fire sprouted from his chest, his own weapon. His head lolled back and he saw the face of Anakin Skywalker, as he'd once been, looming dark and remorseless over him. He looked back down at the blue blade and saw that blood seeped out of his body now despite cauterized agony, spreading like a virus along the sacred blue, tainting it until it glowed crimson to match the tidal flow beneath them, which grew, and grew, and grew, until it hissed hot against his burns and flowed up to smother his face and eyes and into his mouth and –

Obi-Wan opened his eyes.

A low ceiling greeted him, homely plaster chipped in places to reveal the duracrete structure beneath. A small room. No lightsaber glow. The floor was dry and light in color. The lights were off, but the window shades wafted in an air current, allowing gentle waves of light to dance across the room.

Where was this? Obi-Wan's heart still beat a drummer's tempo against his ribs, nightmare not yet past. As if still in a dream, he sat up to look around… and immediately regretted it.

The headache ambushed him and made him remember. The TIEs. Welk. Re-entry, power failing. Parachutes were pulled to late, a crash, dark… head. He was not Obi-Wan. He was Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. The heartbeat in his temples chanted his reality at him as he felt himself over – a nasty lump on one side of his skull, and a cut, too, from the feel of things, which had been taped closed by unknown hands. He drew back a hand from the injury and looked at it, rubbing dried bits of jam-colored bacta between forefinger and thumb. Healers? He looked around the room, at the hand-made lampstand, the quilted coverlet over his legs, the box of old holobooks. No, not a healer's ward. A home. Whose home?

He didn't have his saber. Frantically, he reached out with his senses, seeking the small light, the extension of his own arm. The crystal hummed contentedly back at him from somewhere in the next room. Cautiously, Ben limped to the door and peaked out. It slid open, mercifully quiet. He stepped out into a large living area, tall windows gazing out into a terrestrial climate dusted with moisture. The smell of petrichor filled his senses, calming him through his confusion. He cast eyes around for his saber. Comfortable furniture. Steps down into the den. Bookshelves. Holoscreen. Curtains. What looked to be…children's toys? A half wall at the far end. And… noise. Clatter. Controlled flames. Kitchen? And his saber, glowing softly, somewhere in that direction. He shuffled toward this location, clutching his side gently where he felt a bruised rib. He saw the resident chef before she saw him. A woman, about his age. Blonde hair, freckled skin, pointed noise. She dressed plainly and carried some extra weight on her lower half that indicated at least one victory over childbearing. Ben cleared his throat politely.

She turned with a pan in one hand, saw him, and yelped, reflexively bringing up her domestic weapon like a club. She managed to recover exceptionally quickly, lowering the pan before Ben could even remember to apologize. "I'm so sorry," She said, and took a steadying breath. "You're awake." She set the pan aside and took a hesitant step toward him, looking at the worn and miss-matched robes he still wore, a spot of blood on his left shoulder. She tried to disguise her suspicion, which he supposed he should take as a gesture of goodwill. "And able to walk, that's good. How do you feel?"

Ben wasn't sure how to answer that familiar question. He had long despised everything having to do with medical _anything_. Healers, hospitals, bacta tanks, the lot. Back in the temple healer's ward, from his youth he had always interpreted such inquiries about his wellbeing as permissions to unleash his most ungrateful and caustic wit. But compassion and hospitality coming from a stranger's _home_ were never invitations to use a sharp tongue. "I…" how did he feel? Physically he had sustained far worse. It was the _mental_ state of things that had him in a tizzy. "I'm sorry, I don't… where am I?"

"Well, this is my house," the woman chuckled. "My family's house. Sorry for the cramped room back there, it's the only spare we have."

"Yes," Obi-Wan could've deduced that. "But… where… what planet is this?"

"Oh, dear, that bad," the woman looked deeply sympathetic. "This world is called Stewjon. You heard of it?"

"Stewjon…" Ben wrinkled his forehead. Oh, he'd heard of hundreds of planets. He didn't know for sure. But… the name seemed familiar. "Yes," he might've lied. "In the, um… eh…"

"We're in the outer core," the woman helped.

"Of course, yes, thank you, uh,"

"Era-Tai." She extended her hand.

"Ob-uh, Ben," Ben said, shaking the fog from his mind and meeting her handshake. That dream had done a number on him, for sure. It'd been years since he slipped up with his name. But there was another lingering concern…

"I um… I think you must've taken something of mine?" He asked politely, patting the space where his saber should be. "Or left it somewhere?" He knew it was here in the room, but he played dumb out of consideration.

"Oh! Yes," Era-Tai's eyes widened a bit, and she turned to a high cabinet, standing on tip-toe to reach. She hesitated, but brought down the lightsaber from its hiding place. "I am sorry… It gave my daughter quite a fright yesterday, and I didn't want it within her reach."

"Your daughter?" Ben took the 'saber gratefully and replaced it on his belt, taking time to straighten his clothes.

"Yes, she's the one who found you." And at this thought, Era-Tai shook her head ruefully. "She wasn't meant to be out so late so close to sunset, but she saw the dust tossed up by your pod and went to investigate. Incorrigible. But a good thing, I suppose." She gestured to Obi-Wan, who nodded in understanding. "Your pod was ruined, cracked open. Your, uh… _weapon_ was on the ground. Eli stepped on the ignition; it scared her bad enough to make her scream, which is what drew Bruan and I over. Thank heavens it was pointed away from her foot."

Obi-Wan shuddered to think how this moment may have gone differently if it _hadn't_ been pointed away. Thank the Force. "I am so sorry," He said politely, folding hands into opposite sleeves.

Era-Tai shook her head. "No need for what ifs," she said easily, and went on, "You were pretty banged up. Bruan – my husband – brought you back here last night and we patched you up best we could… you uh…" she looked nervous now. "You didn't, eh, seem to have any… any _Empire_ symbols on you," it was a question disguised as a statement.

"No," Ben said emotionlessly. Era-Tai's eyes flicked nervously to the lightsaber she'd just returned to him. "I'm hardly a clone," He added. She eased, a little.

"Hardly," She agreed. Before she could say anything more, a small girl appeared from a door across the room. She flew across the den towards the visitor, ginger nerftails swinging on their axes in wild figures.

"You're awake!" She exclaimed with the enthusiasm and frankness of a child who did not need to stand on principles of unfamiliarity. She bounded up to Ben, who looked down at her as she approached. "I thought for sure you were dead!" She said with a gap-toothed grin.

"Eli-Lay!" Era-Tai scolded. "That is a horrible thing to say!"

"No no," Ben placated, "It's quite alright." He turned his attention to the young girl beside him. "Eli-Lay, is it?" She nodded enthusiastically. "Well, Eli-Lay, I believe I owe you a very large debt of gratitude. If you had not found me, I likely _would_ be dead. You saved my life." This seemed to impose an air equal parts solemnity and pride onto Eli-Lay's demeanor. "Thank you."

Instead of receiving this grave admission of thanks with grace, Eli-Lay's attention was distracted elsewhere.

"Where'd you get _that?_ " She asked, pointing to his lightsaber. "Are you a real jedi?" Era-Tai's eyes widened in horror and she hissed a rebuke. Obi-Wan glanced at his saber, a bit taken off guard by the sudden shift in topic, but knowing that to _not_ answer would be the more dangerous route.

"Ah, well…" He wasn't sure how to phrase it. Cornered in a dive bar or at held at blaster point, Ben was used to coming up with suitably gory tales of dead jedi, bloodstained graves, prying hilts out of dead hands, but to a _child…_ "Perhaps I am a man who has _killed_ real jedi," He posited, putting a little Force suggestion behind his words and what he hoped was an intimidating facial expression. Eli-Lay was taken aback for about two seconds. And then,

"No."

"No?" his eyebrows lifted.

"If you killed jedi, you would have just said so."

"And why would I do that, young one?" Ben asked, crossing his arms imposingly. Eli-Lay shrugged, and looked to her mother for affirmation.

"That's what the other ones did," she said guilelessly, unaware of the dagger she'd just slipped between Ben's ribs. Era-Tai's face was a picture of tortured apprehension, wishing to stop the conversation but unsure how. Mercifully, a charm signaled that an exterior door had just opened.

"Ah, Eli, that'll be your father, go help him bring in his gear."

"But he was just going to town, he doesn't have any-"

" _Go,_ Eli."

With a small grumble, Eli-Lay trudged obediently downstairs. Era-Tai forced a taught smile at her houseguest. "Would you like something to drink? Water? Caff? Tea?"

"Tea would be lovely," Ben answered politely, voice still small from the shock of Eli's exclamation. He shuffled awkwardly while she worked, adjusting a hand against his sore ribs. Over her shoulder, Era-Tai eyed him – and his saber - with curiosity. He knew she was wondering too, now, but was grateful she hadn't pressed the matter.

"Yes, I can see that," Bruan was saying as he stepped up the stairs with his daughter bouncing at his side. "He is indeed very much awake," he said now to the room, giving his wife a soft look. He turned to Ben. "I hope you're in a better way than I left you," He said with a friendly look.

"Very much so, thanks to your family. I cannot repay you for your hospitality."

"No need, friend," Bruan glanced at the lightsaber but chose to smile past his doubts. "Please, sit."

Bruan was about Ben's height, but stockier in build. He seemed athletic and strong, but carried some weight on his belly and under his chin, which was dusted with a dark scruff. He had a receding hairline and a few grey hairs, big round hazel eyes, and well-worn laughter lines. All in all, he was an extremely relaxing figure to be around. Even his force signature was calming. Ben focused on him, releasing the young girl's words from memory.

"So tell me," Bruan asked as Era-Tai served tea and came to sit with them in the den. "What on earth happened to land you _here_?"

Ben sighed, wondering how much he should relate. "An unfortunate flying accident," He said at length, earning a snort from Bruan.

"An understatement, perhaps."

"Yes, well… my ship sustained some undetected damage some parsecs away. I made the jump to hyperspace and it tore a rip in my fuel line. Your planet's orbit pulled me out of hyperspace and I had no choice but to abandon ship." _Literally no choice,_ he added silently, wincing at the memory of Welk Sarlin's final farewell. _It was not my idea._

"You are an incredibly lucky man to have survived that,"

"Lucky," Ben said, a touch ruefully. There was no such thing, he knew. "Indeed."

Bruan nodded at Ben's lightsaber. "I see you got that back. Gave poor Eli a bit of a fright," He flicked his daughter's nerf tails with a chuckle and she pouted, mumbling something along the lines of "wasn't scared" under her breath.

"I am sorry about that," he said, "I'm afraid the power to my pod was running low, and I pulled the emergency chutes entirely too late. The impact must've tossed it from the pod."

"He's a real jedi, dad," Eli-Lay had meant to whisper, but didn't know how to do so quietly. Ben's eyebrows raised. Bruan's face jumped into an expression equal parts surprise and alarm.

"Is that so?" He said evenly to his daughter.

"The jedi are extinct, little one," Ben told her, a touch sadly. "You ought to know that."

This seemed to end the conversation, but Eli-Lay crossed her arms and squinted at Ben even as he continued talking with her parents.

Their conversation was awkward but helpful; they established that Ben may have sustained a small concussion and should stay close by for another few days to make sure the damage was not severe. Been protested, but he was outmatched. Era-Tai and her husband were a tag team of smothering hospitality, and in the end not only was he their houseguest, but he had a change of Bruan's clothes at his disposal, a promise of a homecooked meal, and hot bath in store, should he want it. He was unsure of how, exactly, this had come about, but he managed to thank them with a straight face.

It wasn't too much work for Ben to put the family at ease about his character without ever revealing too much about himself. He had no Imperial symbols on him, no blasters or bombs. Lightsaber aside, he was a picture of charming manners and grace, impossible _not_ to like. For all they knew, he was an unfortunate courier pilot who'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Non-threatening and not military. Every reason to trust him. Bruan and Era-Tai took him at his word. Eli-Lay, however, did continue to squint at him - and his lightsaber. He made a mental note to keep an eye on her.

Over the course of the evening, Ben learned that Bruan's parents lived closeby, and had been expecting the family that evening – Era-Tai would have to comm them and explain their unavailability.

"No, I need to head over there," Bruan explained, "Dad needed to borrow my toolkit for their thermo unit. Thing's started cutting out at night, and you know how cold it gets."

"Oh," Era-Tai winced in understanding, hauling out cooking equipment suited for a four-person meal. "Alright. Make sure he doesn't hurt himself fixing it."

Bruan smiled. "I'll probably stay. Eli, could you give me hand with this?" Bruan asked, heaving up a metal box of tools. A leather toolbelt remained on the ground. "Eli?" He sighed and shook his head. "Disappears at the worst times, I swear…" Ben smiled.

"Please, allow me."

"You're injured,"

"It's not nearly as bad as it looks," he picked up the belt and slung it over one shoulder. Bruan shrugged, thanked him, and led the way outside.

"Speeder's just this way," He said, walking down a long muddy path to a garage. Ben took a quick survey of his surroundings. It was dusk, the horizon a deep blue. They were in the middle of a wide valley, mountains purple on the horizon. Farming domes and rows of crops rose up some ways off into east. On the west, at the edge of the valley, twinkling lights and lines of air traffic suggested a bustling cityscape. Even in the Empire's shadow, it seemed, Core worlds were doing well.

"It's been some time since I've been to the Core," Ben said conversationally. "Your world seems to be doing well."

He could sense he'd struck a slight nerve. "Well enough," Bruan conceded. "But with the Empire here now, all's not always as it seems."

Been absorbed this. "You are not a supporter of the Empire," He said. Fear flashed briefly over Bruan's expression. He clenched his jaw, unable to lie.

"No." Then he glanced at Ben's saber, swaying against his thigh as they walked. "Though with that thing there, I'd wager you wouldn't be their number one fan, either."

Ben tilted his head in subtle acceptance. "Not exactly, no," which made Bruan chuckle.

"I don't suppose you _actually_ killed that jedi?" the man ventured, now alone without Eli-Lay's innocent ears.

Ben weighed his words before saying them. "No, not as such." It was vague enough to give Bruan pause. Even so, by the time they had reached the garage he'd worked up another bit of courage to speak.

"Are they _really_ all dead? The jedi, I mean."

"I'm afraid so," Ben nodded. Did it count if he was the only one left?

Bruan looked sad, but unsurprised. "My brother was a jedi," he said, and then looked away as if it'd slipped out unbidden.

Ben's eyebrows shot up. "Really?" He asked, as Bruan reached up to yank on the garage door lever.

"Or so I've been told. Never got to meet him." He grunted and the door screeched open, rust falling from one track. "Hell, for all I know he was killed years ago, before the whole…" He gestured widely, used to censoring his rebellious sentiments. He shrugged and glanced again at Ben's lightsaber and shrugged. "It's a pity. Anyway." He lifted the hatch on his landspeeder and deposited his toolbox. "Just stick that back here," Bruan instructed. "I'll be back in a few hours, hopefully. Era and Eli will take care of you."

Ben was nodding along amicably as he tossed the toolbelt into the back of the speeder. It was a worn leather affair, obviously standard issue for an engineer or mechanic. It wasn't surprising, then, that Bruan's name and ID number were branded into the leather in dark letters. However, _seeing_ his name made Ben's heart leap into his throat so he could neither nod nor speak.

 _#20683_

 _KENOBI, BRUAN_

 _SR. ENGINEER_

 _DOCK #7_

"You alright there?" Bruan noticed he stayed hunched over the speeder's rear hatch. "You didn't make that rib worse, did you?"

"No, no, I'm quite alright, thank you," Ben's eyes stayed on the belt as Bruan came over. "You're an engineer?" He queried.

"Was. The Empire wanted me to design better starfighters for them. I told them it was it was time for me to retire back to my home and take care of my old decrepit, ailing parents." He laughed, as though this idea were funny. "I managed to sneak that souvenir before I left.

"And, uh… Kenobi?"

"My surname," Bruan said, closing the hatch and walking around to the driver's seat. "I'd best be off before it's completely dark. Save _some_ of Era's cooking for me?" He kidded, and closed the hatch. Ben could not manage anything more than a smile and a nod.

The speeder jumped to life, its repulsors thrumming in a low, steady rhythym. Ben was frozen where he stood, staring openly at Bruan through the window. _Bro-ther. Bro-ther, bro-ther, brother brother brotherbrotherbrother,_ the accelerating rythym chanted at him, his heart clenched in a way he would never had expected, if ever he had gathered his wits to consider this impossible scenario before.

Bruan left him there the garage. Ben walked slowly back outside and closed the garage door with a wave of his hand. He looked back across the field to the glowing windows of the… _Kenobi_ household.

When they'd said they'd give him a family-style dinner, he hadn't expected it to become so literal. A lump formed in his throat.

Of course, neither had _they._

He walked back to the house in a numb daze, wondering why his eyes were watering for strangers.


End file.
